The Blog / presenting

Making a really great speech or presentation requires a great deal of preparation and practice. In an ideal world, you would always have time to plan, rehearse and perfect your words of wisdom. However, sometimes things don’t work out that way. Here is a simple process to enable you to prepare a speech (or presentation) in five minutes…

On the way home, my thoughts turned to “what makes a good pitch?” Over the years I’ve been on both sides of the table, prepping the pitches and pitching businesses for funding, but also listening to company pitches with a view to investment or acquisition. As I was describing these my ever astute COO, she said “That sounds like the seven habits of highly effective pitchers”, so here they are…

I haven’t mentioned PowerPoint or presenting in a while, potentially because I am increasingly speaking without the use of slides these days. However, a recent trade show visit put it firmly back on my radar, as I took to the stage and also caught some other speakers. Needless to say, the trip spawned a top […]

Some things are too scary to plan for. No, not life insurance, public speaking. Presenting at an event or a conferences is intimidating, even for a frequent speaker. Covering your eyes and hoping it will all be OK obviously isn’t the answer, so what to do?

I’m a regular follower of TED, watching as many of the TED talks as my Mac can take. The talks range from inspirational to informative, and sometimes they are both. Larry Lessig’s recently posted TED talk is fascinating, both for its content and for the way that he uses slides in his presentation. It was […]

You may remember that I am a big TED fan (not the cuddly animal – the amazing conference). Digging thought the archives recently, I rediscovered this gem from Al Gore. He has become a powerful communicator and this is a fine example. Here are some key things that he does, that you can do too:

As promised, here are 10 PowerPoint tips: If you can put it on two slides, rather than one, then do. Most people put far to much information on a single slide. If you need notes, put them in the notes section. That is what it is for. You can then print and use the notes. […]